Chapter 1 #7
“Hey,” Beth says into her phone. “I need your help… No, Bella is losing her fucking mind… She told me about you all… No, that’s not why she’s freaking out, Cory.
She’s pregnant… No, I just made her take a test when she said that she’s two months late and now she’s quite literally going crazy.
I’d like to get her back to y’all’s place but I’m afraid to put her in the car.
She’s threatened to kill herself like six times now…
No, she’s just talking to herself. She’s sitting on the floor in the corner of the bathroom at the gas station on the corner of Third and Willow…
I tried that, Cory. She won’t listen to me.
She won’t do anything besides sit there and talk to herself…
Okay… No, I’ll keep her in here, so she doesn’t try to play in traffic…
No, I’m not joking. She’s had a mental break or something.
I don’t doubt that she wouldn’t try… Okay… Bye.”
I never imagined myself rocking in a corner somewhere, but here we are. Beth doesn’t say anything to me but she’s watching me like a hawk. An unknown amount of time passes before there’s a knock at the bathroom door. I find more tears to cry when Beth opens the door and I see Cory.
“Oh, Bella,” he sighs. Beth shuts the door behind him and keeps her distance and he comes over to me.
“Please don’t,” I cry. “Please, just go.”
“No, Bella. I need you to talk to me,” he says as he kneels beside me.
“They are going to fucking hate us,” I cry.
“Who? Mom and Dad? Bella, baby. They’ll be okay. They might be mad for a while but they’ll get over it,” he says.
“We can’t bring this child into this world,” I whimper. “What kind of fucking life would that be? Hey, look. It’s my Aunt Mom and My Uncle Dad.”
“That’s funny,” Beth laughs. “Would that make me a double aunt?”
“You’re ridiculous,” Cory laughs.
“Why am I the only one freaking out about this?” I ask.
“Hormones,” Cory says with a smirk, and Beth giggles.
“It’s not funny,” I say, smacking his arm. He catches my wrist and pulls me to his chest.
“I know it’s not, Bella,” he says as he hugs me. “But you need to relax.”
“This is so bad, Cory,” I say quietly.
“Bella,” he says as he pulls away to look at me.
“If you want to have an abortion, I will take you. I’ll hold your hand and we will move past this.
If you don’t wanna have an abortion, we will figure it out.
I understand why you’re freaking out, but we can’t do anything about it.
What’s done is done, remember?” he says and I nod.
“Do you want to have an abortion?” Beth asks.
“No, not only is this shit illegal, but I can’t bring this baby into this world so they can suffer. I can’t doom them to serious illness.”
“Okay, first you two need to talk to your parents. The only way to know about genetics is if you talk to them,” she says.
“What are you getting at?” Cory asks.
“Cory. She looks nothing like you all. You need to ask your mom if she fucked another man because if you all don’t have the same father, then you’re only half-siblings. That is way better than full-blooded siblings having a child together.”
“I can’t say that I haven’t considered that a possibility,” Cory says. “She’s right. I don’t want you to get an abortion because you feel like you have to. If there’s a way out of this, we need to figure it out so that you don’t regret your choice.”
“Can I ask you two something?” Beth asks.
“What?” I sigh.
“Is it weird? Like… I will support Bella with everything, even if that’s boning her brother, but I’m just morbidly curious,” she says.
“The freak calls me his little sister when he fucks me,” I frown. Beth burst into giggles.
“Come for me, Sissy,” Beth mocks with a fake moan.
“I hate you,” I say, shaking my head. “No, it’s not weird. It’s scary how fucking normal it feels.”
“Well, let’s hope your mom’s a whore,” Beth shrugs.
“Will you come with me when we tell them?” I ask.
“You bet,” she smiles. “I’ll throw hands with them if they get stupid.”
I am pacing the living room, waiting for my dad to get off the phone. Mom, Cory, and Beth are watching me walk from one end to the other. I’m lost in thought, thinking about how I’m going to say it.
What will their reaction be?
My dad is violently protective of me. Will he get mad at Cory?
To be fair, Cory is protective over me too, only Cory is the one that I get fucked by. Not my Dad.
“Okay,” Dad says. “Stand still and tell me what has you twisted.”
“Fuck,” I sigh. “I don’t know how to even say this.”
“Bluntly,” Beth says.
“Want me to?” Cory asks and I shake my head.
“Fine… I’m pregnant,” I say. Both of my parents just stare at me. They don’t say a word for more than two minutes.
“Who’s the Dad?” Mom asks. “Does he know?”
“Yeah,” I laugh dryly. “He knows.”
“I didn’t realize you were seeing anyone,” Dad says. “It’s just a baby. I don’t really understand why you were that nervous to tell us that.”
“Because that’s not it,” I say with a shaken voice.
“I’m trying to find any reason to not have an abortion or to throw myself off a bridge.
I want you to understand that the only reason I’m bringing this up to you instead of doing one of the other two options is because Cory and Beth convinced me to tell you.
I didn’t want you to know. I have no desire to tell you this. ”
“Well, that’s one hell of a lead-in. What’s up?” Mom asks.
I start to tear up and Cory looks pained as he forces himself to not comfort me. “Bella, what’s going on?” Dad asks. “Did someone hurt you?”
“No, no. It’s nothing like that,” I say, trying to sniff back my tears.
“Who’s the father then?” he asks.
“Cory,” I say slowly.
“No, I want to hear from you,” Dad says.
“No, Dad. That’s not what I meant.”
“Oh,” Mom says, wide-eyed. “Oh, wow.”
“Wait. Back up,” Dad says, shaking his head.
“Cory is the father,” I say with a sigh.
“I am hoping like hell that I look different from everybody in this family because mom’s a whore and cheated on you or you stole me out of someone’s house.
That is the only reason I am telling you all.
I don’t wanna have to have an abortion, but I will if we are full-blood siblings.
So please… tell me that mom is a whore.”
“Well, fuck,” Dad sighs.
“I told you we should’ve told him sooner,” Mom says to Dad.
“Yeah yeah. I know,” he says. “Hindsight is 20/20.”
“What?” I ask. “Are we not commenting on the whole father bit?”
“So… biologically speaking… You two are not related,” Mom says.
“What does that even mean?”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Cory says. “I asked you so many times over the years. You lied to me repeatedly.”
“I know,” Dad says softly.
“What?” I ask again.
“You’re adopted,” Cory says. “I first asked them whenever I was like six years old and you were a baby. I learned about pregnancy because my teacher was pregnant. I commented saying that I didn’t remember Mom being pregnant with you.
They blew me off,” he says. Cory stands up and comes over to hug me.
“See… I knew she wasn’t a brother fucker,” Beth says.
“Jesus, Beth,” I sigh.
“Sorry,” she laughs.
“When was I adopted and why the fuck did you lie to me?”
“I want you to remember that you still had sex with somebody that you thought was your brother,” Mom snaps.
“I don’t really give a fuck about that right now. You lied to me for twenty-one fucking years. You had every opportunity to tell me.”
“The truth is, you are my best friend’s daughter.
She got into a car wreck and died later in the hospital.
I was given custody of you when you were three months old.
Before she went unconscious, I think she knew she was gonna die, and she asked me to raise you like my own, so I did.
I thought I was doing the right thing,” she says tearfully.
“I know of her family history. They made sure that I knew in case something came up.”
“And you kept me away from them? Not only did they lose their daughter, sister, and friend. Whatever. But they also lost her daughter?”
“Most of them respected that she wanted me to raise you like my own,” she says.
“That doesn’t mean isolate me,” I snap.
“Can we get back to you being pregnant?” Dad asks. “How did this start?”
“On Halloween, when he got back, we both went to a masked party and didn’t recognize one another… and you can figure out the rest,” I say. “We just… kept doing it. I’m on birth control, so I didn’t think anything was that big of a deal in that regard.”
“God, when we got home and you were in your room. He was in there, wasn’t he?” Dad asks.
“Yeah,” I say and Mom chuckles. “Honestly guys… you two have always been attached to the hip. Even with the age difference, you’ve always been glued to each other. It’s not really surprising, although I think the pregnancy is the most surprising part.”
“So…” Beth says. “She’s not carrying an inbred baby?”
“Beth,” I sigh and she laughs.
“No,” Mom says. “Do you two plan on raising this baby together?”
“Yes,” Cory says. “We’ve been talking about moving…”
“I was going to say,” Mom sighs.
“What? If you move, I’m coming with you,” Beth frowns.
“We are legally siblings. If someone wanted to make a big deal out of it, they probably could. If we moved to New Jersey or Rhode Island, we wouldn’t have an issue. If we chose New Jersey… There is a CEO position of a tech company and their board wants Cory.”
“Well, I guess I’m moving to New Jersey with you guys,” Beth shrugs.
“We can try to see if we can get the adoption revoked possibly. That will allow you all to live a little bit more normal of a life,” Mom says.
Cory hugs me tight and whispers in my ear “I guess I should start calling you little mama when I’m inside you.”
“I’m definitely calling you Daddy now,” I reply softly. Cory pulls back and kisses me in front of everyone. They all disappear as I melt into him.
They say that sometimes life throws you a curve ball but they failed to tell me was that sometimes the ball is made out of explosives. We narrowly escaped a difficult situation. All in all, I don’t regret what we did. The best thing I ever did was to fall in love with my brother.